Bedridden patients are often plagued by bed sores occurring on portions of their body which have been in prolonged contact with the bed surface. This condition can be alleviated or wholly prevented by periodically changing the relative position of the patient in the bed. In addition to alleviating the problem of bed sores it is known that persons have a natural tendency to want to shift their position during periods of sleep and that they rest more comfortably when able to do so. Many patients because of the nature of their illnesses or injuries cannot move in bed without assistance and this necessary motion must be provided either manually by members of the hospital staff or by mechanical means.
One means to periodically move bedridden patients would be to provide a mechanism which would rock the bed back and forth transversely causing motion of the patient on the bed. Mechanisms to provide this motion can be incorporated in the bed frame, as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,311,542 and 3,748,666. Doing this, however, greatly increases the cost of hospital beds as well as making such beds undesirably heavy and difficult to move. Since this rocking feature is not necessary for all hospital patients it would be desirable to provide portable apparatus which can be attached to existing bed frames to provide this rocking motion selectively when and where needed for a particular patient at a particular time.
The portable apparatus described herein provides this desirable feature by utilizing portable relatively light components which can be used to provide a rocking motion with existing bed frames when needed for a particular patient and can be easily removed for use elsewhere or for storage when no longer needed. Such a device can be transported throughout a health care facility for use in turn on different beds and to serve the needs of various patients, thereby removing the need to transport heavy bulky beds over great distances or in the alternative transport patients throughout the facility.